Published in Latinlawyer.com Friday, 7 March 2014.
A new five-partner firm has been set up in Buenos Aires by lawyers from Bruchou, Fernández Madero & Lombardi and Bazán, Cambré & Orts.
Tavarone, Rovelli, Salim & Miani – Abogados will focus mainly on banking and finance transactions, but will also offer a wider corporate law practice, as well as litigation and tax advice. It opened its doors on 5 March. The new firm is formed of banking and finance partners Marcelo Tavarone and Federico Salim, tax partner Gastón Miani, corporate partner Juan Pablo Bove and litigation partner Mariano Rovelli. Tavarone, 42, and Miani, 39, were formerly partners at Bazán, Cambré & Orts, where Bove, 36, was an associate, while Salim, 37, and Rovelli, 42, came from Bruchou Fernández Madero.
Tavarone Rovelli came about after discussions between the lawyers started back in December, when the two teams both began considering leaving their respective law firms.
Tavarone says his decision to leave Bazán Cambré was based on meeting client needs: “It was a friendly, coordinated and agreeable separation, but we found it would be better for our clients to separate,” he explains, adding that conflicts of interest had arisen in some cases.
Rovelli and Salim’s departure from Bruchou Fernández was motivated by their desire to make the switch from a big firm, where they were junior partners, to a smaller one, where they believe they can have more interaction with their clients. Salim was made partner at Bruchou Fernández Madero in 2012, while Rovelli was promoted a year earlier.
Salim, whose practice includes banking and finance, project finance and debt restructuring, explains that Argentina’s slow legal market, which has seen a dearth of cross-border, high value activity in recent years, meant that as a junior partner at a larger firm that had considerable fixed costs, he was financially motivated to move. “I always wanted to have my own firm,” says Salim. “I strongly believe I can do well in a smaller structure, which has less costs and more muscle to be flexible in the Argentine economic market.” For litigation lawyer Rovelli, the decision was also guided by a desire to be closer to clients.
Merging the two teams came “naturally” says Salim, since he and Tavarone had already worked on numerous transactions together and have clients in common. In the last few months, they were involved in construction services company ODS’s US$65 million notes offering and gas supplier Rafael G Albanesi’s US$ 27.5 million trust securities placement, albeit on different sides of the table. Not only that, Tavarone was at Bruchou Fernández Madero before leaving for Bazán Cambré & Orts to head its banking and finance team in 2011. Miani and Bove also have associate experience at Bruchou Fernández Madero; Miani left in 2007 later joining Bazán Cambré as a partner in 2011, while Bove left in 2010.
Bruchou Fernández said in a statement to Latin Lawyer that Salim and Rovelli both left on “good terms” and that it won’t be making any hires to replace them. The firm, one of the largest in the market, has a leading reputation for banking and finance work with a five-partner team led by Hugo Bruzone, while its disputes and bankruptcy team, under Carlos Rotman, has three partners.
Bazán Cambré plans to work “in a coordinated way” with the new firm says corporate partner Nicolas Dilernia. The two firms’ different practice areas can be better provided independently of each other, he adds, and given the “friendly” nature of the arrangement, they plan to jointly advise clients who need broader legal advice than the firms can individually offer. Bazán Cambré’s practice areas include energy, mining, administrative law, insurance and telecommunications.
At Tavarone Rovelli there are seven associates to accompany the five partners; a ratio that Tavarone says is a reflection of this commitment to face-to-face partner involvement. For the moment the firm is not expecting to add any more partners; however, Tavarone is anticipating growth next year.